Firsts
by Blue Mage Quartet
Summary: "You were the first person to touch me because they wanted to."


Her hands, petite and delicate, thread themselves in between his larger, callous ones. She shifts, a flush creeping through her cheeks as she tries to make things more comfortable, height differences be damned.

The tops of her thighs come to rest on his, the fabric of her black negligee rustling softly against the fabric of his sheer briefs. She made a mental note of asking about his choice of intimate apparel later.

Satisfied that Jake's chin is no longer knocking against the top of her head, Sherry relaxes and just lets herself lie astride her taller partner.

As it were the top of her blonde bob cut happens to just barely reach the dip of his collarbone, so she contents herself with laying against the broad expanse of his chest, skin against skin. The sound of his heartbeat is steady and comforting.

Sherry's eyes dart across the landscape of Jake's torso, as tight and defined as it is littered with scars; she catches one running horizontal above his pectorals, one that runs jagged across his right bicep, one gouged just beneath his navel that slithers across his skin to left hip. Bullets and knives the thread and needle that stitched Jake's seams together.

Sherry hadn't been entirely certain, exactly, as to what to expect from Jake; whereas she would not have been surprised to face cocky dominance, assertive bragging and a smug smirk on his face as he undressed what she had witnessed was a different story entirely.

His touches and his kisses were soft, delicate, gently ghosting across the surface of her skin leaving her wanting more yet at the same time lighting a bit of a fire in her. She had spent most of her life under government survey, treated like a prized commodity, some fragile doll in constant danger of breaking- and in some cases, being broken when it suited the purpose of her captors.

To have Jake, the one person who knew what she could overcome and what she could do, the one person who suffered the same mistreatment right alongside her, treat her so sensitively stung even though she knew Jake's actions came from a place of concern and care.

When Sherry's movements became more brash, more hurried and less careful, he did not resist and he seemed content to cede over all control to her and let her take the lead as she removed his clothing one by one, the black shirt he so loved, so wrinkled and threadbare at this point Sherry is surprised he still wears it, the suspenders and the myriad of belts, the combat boots.

The cocky remarks, the combativeness, the unique way only the left side of his lips tugged upward into a smirk all vanished and she was left with a Jake whose walls had been torn down, who no longer had to be in control. He trusted her completely and let her lead him to the bed.

Sherry had hardly expected to be ravished like the ladies in her romance novels and, to be honest, she was unsure if she was actually ready for it to be that way. Here was the mercenary with a chip on his shoulder, with identity crises and issues that mirrored her own, who had saved her life more times than she could count, who had shielded her body with his own, laid bare and intimate before her. This was a Jake she had all the time in the world- or at least until the next mission-to get to know.

So she had ended up lying against him, half clothed, sitting on the edge of the bed with her head nestled against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. She brings her lips together and they meet the skin of his chest, so calloused and battle worn, scarred, so unlike the smooth, pale skin of her own.

She hears his breathing hitch and his chest moves up and down erratically and Sherry hears what sounds like a muffled sob, choked back. She looks up and she sees Jake, ruddy faced, cheeks reddening to match his short shorn hair. Tears are welling in the corner of his eyes and he looks like he wants to wipe them roughly away, but his hands are too comfortably intertwined with Sherry's to do so.

"Jake? Are you alright?" Sherry asks, hurriedly making to extricate herself, a flush coming to her own cheeks as she starts to move her legs off of his.

Of course, the tiny voice inside the back of her mind tells her, there's no way he'd want this, no way he wanted **you**.

"I-I can stop if you want me to-"

She acts to remove her hands from his but is surprised to feel Jake's grip, fingers interlocked with hers, grow stronger. His eyes meet hers, a gunmetal, steely shade looking straight into eyes the color of dew drops on a spring morning.

His hands disengage with hers only to bring themselves to the small of her back and draw her into an embrace and Sherry's own hands stretch around the expanse of his broad back to return the gesture. She is against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and Jake's face is buried in her hair and she feels something warm and damp.

Jake withdraws from the hug and his hands move to cup her face and before she knows it, Jake is leaning in, kissing her, the warmth of his tears wetting her own cheeks, and Sherry is kissing him back and though she tries not to tears of own slip unbidden from her eyes.

When the kiss is finished and Sherry is done wiping away the tears- Jake makes no such effort- and trying (and failing) to get the blush in her cheeks to reside, his left hand slowly strokes the small of her back as the right plays with her hair, blonde strands twisting and twirling in between his hands, hands that have had killed, hands that have had blood- her blood- on them cup her face.

The cocky mercenary who mouths off first and asks questions later, the man who wanted 50 million for his blood to save the world, the man who almost shot the brother of Claire Redfield is sitting before her. The man who lowered his blood price to a mere fifty dollars, who is capable of unforeseeable kindness and sympathy, the man who helped save the world, the man who is Albert Wesker's son, but that's not all, is also sitting before her.

Jake Muller, scars, cockiness, with a temper as short and fiery as his hair, a man who had known little kindness and understanding until Sherry came into his life, looks at Sherry Birkin earnestly, honestly, the whole of him laid bare before her, with tears welling in his eyes and on his high cheeks.

"You were the first person who touched me because they wanted to."


End file.
